In a new interview with Ed Hackimer of This Day In Metal, guitarist Chris Caffery of acclaimed progressive metal pioneers SAVATAGE reflected on the band's comeback performances in 2025 and June 2026 and looked ahead to SAVATAGE's upcoming European shows later this summer.

He said: “We did four shows in South America [in April 2025].

Three were festivals and one was a headline, and then we did 10 shows in Europe [in June 2025], which was split 50/50 between five headline and five festival shows.” Caffery continued: “We’re gonna get everywhere we can.

It’s a process that’s being done in a way where we feel we could do justice to all the shows.” He added: “We have four weeks of dates in Europe.

And we just did a couple of festivals three weeks ago, and we spent a lot of time rehearsing for them.

And we’re gonna go into Athens, Greece for a week and rehearse there before we head to Istanbul, Turkey for the very first time to start doing the shows we have in Europe.” Regarding how SAVATAGE's setlist for the Pompei concert will be different from that for the other shows on the summer 2026 tour, Caffery said: “Well, when Paul O'Neill had us do the 'Prelude To Madness' before 'Hall Of The Mountain King', the song, his whole thing with that song was to have the orchestra battling the rock band.

And he always felt that the classical musicians were the rock stars and heavy metal musicians of their time, which I agree with.” Caffery elaborated on SAVATAGE's plans to professionally film and record the Pompei concert: “I never like to give official news until we get official news as a band.

But I'm pretty sure that that's gonna be one of those ones that we're not gonna go, 'Let's just fly away' without there being cameras running.” SAVATAGE will play four weeks of dates in Europe this summer, including at the Amphitheater of Pompei in Italy with a special 40-person orchestra.

The band has confirmed they will professionally film and record the concert, which is expected to be over two hours long.